A fifteenth-century royal monument in Burma and the seven stations in Buddhist art

·期刊原文
A fifteenth-century royal monument in Burma and the seven stations in Buddhist art

by D.M. Stadtner，Art Bulletin

Pp. 39-52

Copyright by Art Bulletin

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A group of fifteenth-century monuments in Burma commemorates a special
seven-week period associated with the Buddha's Enlightenment at Bodh
Gaya in India. The layout of the shrines, or stations, was determined
by a formal plan that was considered to be a replica of the original
temple complex at Bodh Gaya. The adoption of the plan in Burma
reflects the process by which a venerated religious site in India and
its interpretation were transmitted to Southeast Asia. The royal
patronage of the site was motivated by a regional myth that
legitimized the foundation of Buddhism in Burma.

The monuments in Burma that are of concern to this study raise broad
questions about the very nature of Buddhist art outside its homeland in
India. In Southeast Asia, myths arose among the kingdoms of Burma,
Thailand, and Sri Lanka that sought to connect the life of the Buddha with
separate regional histories. In Sri Lanka, for example, a tradition
asserted that the Buddha flew through the sky to the island and left an
impression of his footprints for his devotees to worship. In addition,
corporal relics of the Buddha were purportedly transmitted from India under
special circumstances and venerated in shrines patronized by royalty. The
most revered temple in Burma is believed to contain hairs of the Buddha
that he gave to two merchants at the conclusion of his seven-week residence
at Bodh Gaya. Such myths furnished a narrative matrix in which the Buddha
himself played a major role in establishing the faith in these diverse
regions. At the same time, the patronage of monuments associated with these
relics provided rulers with the opportunity of protecting and sustaining
the faith. The royal sponsor of the monuments in Burma, for example,
likened himself to much earlier celebrated rulers in India and Sri Lanka
whose encouragement of Buddhism had become legendary.

Buddhists also constructed temples that resembled the sacred temple at Bodh
Gaya, which marked the site of the Buddha's enlightenment. Surviving
examples occur throughout Southeast Asia and in other Asian countries, such
as Nepal and China. Additional shrines at Bodh Gaya commemorated each of
the seven weeks that the Buddha spent in residence there, but these were
rarely replicated elsewhere. The complex at Pegu in Burma and another in
Thailand are the only two for which there is firm evidence, and both belong
to the fifteenth century.

Stone inscriptions connected to the shrines in Pegu suggest the importance
that was attached to designing the site according to the layout at Bodh
Gaya. Indeed, the efficacy of the site was enhanced by its resemblance to
the original in India. The few scholarly interpretations of the Pegu
temples have argued that the plan was obtained directly from Bodh Gaya at
the time of construction. By the fifteenth century, however, the Bodh Gaya
region had been ruled by Muslim dynasties for more than two hundred years,
and it is unlikely that the shrines marking all of the stations there were
still standing or located in their original positions. A fresh study of the
sources for the layout at Pegu reveals not only the changes that occurred
at Bodh Gaya over the centuries but the process by which Buddhists abroad
determined the appearance of the faith's most important sacred center in
India. The ground plan at Pegu did not derive from fifteenth-century India
but was based on an influential biography of the Buddha and descriptions of
Bodh Gaya compiled by pilgrims from Southeast Asia.

The shrines at Pegu were first noticed in the late nineteenth century, at a
time when the English were beginning to explore and document Burma's past.
The monuments dedicated to the stations were constructed over a wide area
encompassing approximately a square kilometer. The largest shrine, marking
the first week, signaled the Buddha's enlightenment. Its central position
and its size indicate that it was the principal monument around which the
others were oriented. Another station is situated a short distance to the
east of the principal temple and is dedicated to the fifth week. Both these
monuments are constructed of brick and surrounded by high, brick walls.
Apart from a small artificial lake that represents an incident associated
with the sixth week, no remains of the other stations have survived. In the
vicinity of each station was a large stone inscription whose text provided
a summary of the episodes in the life of the Buddha that each shrine
commemorated.

The main shrine has been recently cleared of vegetation and is today a
subject of worship, but the other standing temple is virtually concealed by
dense jungle growth. Since the site's discovery, attention has centered
almost entirely on hundreds of terra-cotta plaques that were originally
inserted into niches on the faces of the compound walls of the two extant
temples. Figures in high relief on the tiles depicted the demons and female
temptresses who played a prominent role during the Buddha's residence at
Bodh Gaya. Many plaques were dispersed long ago into European public
collections, where they have provided the West with its only tangible
knowledge of this Buddhist site.

Occasional notices of the shrines appeared in the annual reports of the
Archaeological Survey of Burma published prior to the Second World War. A
handful of the site's epigraphs have been edited and translated into
English, but the bulk of the inscriptions are available only in a single
publication in Burmese.[l] Despite the significance of these monuments, no
study has adequately described the site or examined the sources of its
ground plan.

The entire site commemorating the stations was dedicated in A.D. 1479
during the reign of King Dhammaceti (A.D. 1462-1492). This ruler belonged
to an ethnic group known as the Mons, whose political control of Lower
Burma reached its apogee during this period. The selection of the stations
as a theme has been universally explained as an effort by Dhammaceti to
emulate the sacred site of Bodh Gaya, but its choice was also tied directly
to the special Mon myth that celebrated the hair relics of the Buddha given
to the two merchants on the last day of the seven-week period. These relics
were thought to be enshrined in a monument near Pegu that Dhammaceti had
refurbished, a monument that has continued to be venerated as Burma's most
sacred shrine.

The Seven Stations at Pegu

The seven stations mark the Enlightenment of the Buddha beneath a special
tree at Bodh Gaya (Fig. 1) and the immediately succeeding events of his
biography. After a week of meditation under the tree, the Buddha achieved
enlightenment after defeating the demon Mara and his army. The Buddha then
spent a second week in a "steadfast gaze" at the Tree of Enlightenment. The
third week was occupied in walking from east to west upon a jeweled
walkway. The gods then created a jeweled house as the Buddha's residence
during his fourth week. The fifth week was devoted to sitting beneath a
tree belonging to a goatherd named Ajapala. During this week, M-ara's three
seductive daughters failed to distract the Buddha from his meditative
course. The main event of the sixth week was a snake king's sheltering the
Buddha from a storm. The Buddha spent the final week beneath the Rajayatana
tree, enjoying his emancipation from worldly attachments. At the end of the
seventh week, on the forty-ninth day, the Buddha granted strands of his
hair to two traveling Indian merchants who returned home and enshrined the
relics. The merchants, the brothers Tapassu and Bhalluka, are considered to
be the first lay disciples of the Buddha, and the hair relics are thought
to be the first of the Buddha's corporal relics to have become objects of
worship. As a token of their devotion, the brothers donated food to the
Buddha, who held a special bowl fabricated by the gods.[2] The Mons of the
fifteenth century maintained that the merchants were from Lower Burma, and
that the hair relics are those now in the national shrine in Rangoon. The
political power of the Mons was consolidated under Dhammaceti, who
initiated work on many religious monuments throughout Lower Burma. The
greatest concentration of building occurred in Pegu, the capital, but the
largest and most significant shrine was devoted to the hair relics in
nearby Rangoon.

All of the seven separate episodes occurred in the vicinity of the Tree of
Enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. The shrine celebrating this event at Bodh Gaya
is known today as the Mahabodhi Temple, and this temple, along with a tree
said to derive from the original, has been revered by Buddhists throughout
the world as a major pilgrimage center for over two millennia. Apart from
the Mahabodhi Temple, the precise locations of the shrines marking the
remaining stations at Bodh Gaya cannot be positively identified.

The earliest stratum of Buddhist literature recognized only four weeks
surrounding the Enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, but this number was later
expanded to a total of seven.[3] This period of forty-nine days provided a
transition between the Buddha's earlier career as a wandering ascetic and
his decision to leave Bodh Gaya in order to preach.

The first station, which signified the Enlightenment, was the favorite
subject of the Buddhist artists of Southeast Asia. They generally depicted
the Buddha in a seated position, often beneath a tree, with his extended
right hand touching the earth (Fig. 2). This gesture of his hand indicates
his call to the Earth Goddess to affirm his spiritual fitness at the end of
the first week. Following this moment, the demon M-ara and his army flee in
defeat. The remaining six stations are rarely depicted separately. An
exception are images of the Buddha protected by the hoods of the snake king
Mucalinda, which marked the sixth week. Sculptures portraying this incident
are known in the West largely by works from the Khmer kingdom, which was
responsible for Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.

Despite the appearance of the stations in many standard biographies of the
Buddha, the theme has never been of major importance in Buddhist art.[4]
Depictions of the episodes, therefore, never gained the widespread currency
or stability that marked renderings of other incidents from the Buddha's
career, such as his birth, certain miracles, his enlightenment, and death.
Even fairly complete narrative cycles of the Buddha's life in Asian art
usually omit some or all of the stations and concentrate upon other
episodes.[5]

Works of art portraying all of the stations occasionally appear in Upper
Burma at Pagan, a site composed of hundreds of brick temples dating between
the eleventh and thirteenth centuries (Fig. 1). A unique terra-cotta votive
plaque from the Pagan period presents the stations in a horizontal row
beneath depictions of the "Eight Great Events" (Fig. 2). The first station
is placed in the center, and the others are symmetrically disposed on
either side.[6] A small group of stone images and mural paintings also
prove that the theme of the stations was known at Pagan, but no evidence
indicates that the stations as a group were represented by special
structures.[7] During this early period, the incident of the hair relics
and the two Indian merchants, which took place at the conclusion of the
seven weeks, was not yet associated with Burma.

After the eclipse of Pagan's prestige in the thirteenth century, no
stations in Burma are recorded until the construction of the monuments at
Pegu in the fifteenth century. The appearance of the theme does not
necessarily represent a revival of a lost tradition, since it would have
been kept alive through the study of Buddhist texts. Mon inscriptions and
later manuscripts in Burma record an elaborate mythology establishing a
direct link between Lower Burma and the historical Buddha.[8] At the core
of these myths is the presentation of corporal relics of the Buddha to
legendary Burmese rulers by the Buddha's disciples. The most venerated were
the strands of hair bestowed on the forty-ninth day, which were believed to
have been transported by the merchants to the national shrine in Rangoon
near Pegu.

Stone inscriptions at Pegu indicate that the complex devoted to the
stations was dedicated on a single day during the summer of 1479.[9] None
of the inscriptions suggests that any of the monuments contained relics,
but the theme of the stations was inextricably connected to the hair relics
that are featured during the seventh week. Surviving epigraphs in the Mon
language refer to only three of the seven stations: the second week -- the
Buddha's jeweled walkway; the fifth week -- the goatherd's tree; and the
sixth week -- the sheltering of the Buddha by the snake Mucalinda who
resides in a lake (Fig. 3). Traces of the stations, except the jeweled
walkway, exist in the jungle surrounding the central Mahabodhi Temple,
which marks the first week.[l0] The complex probably included all seven
monuments, but until the dense vegetation is cleared or more donative
records are discovered, this cannot be proved.

The mode of worship at the site is unknown, but the wording of the
inscriptions suggests that devotees moved between stations in the proper
sequence and paused to read the accompanying epigraphs. It is also unknown
if the appearance of each station was modeled upon its brief textual
description, such as the "jeweled house" or the "goatherd's tree." The
epigraph connected with the jeweled walkway, however, described an actual
walkway and two small shrines placed at either end. The goatherd's temple
is today a shapeless mound of brick covered by jungle, and the Mahabodhi
shrine, known in modern Burmese as the Shwegugyi Temple, perhaps reflects a
number of undocumented rebuildings since the fifteenth century. The only
surviving works reliably dated to the fifteenth century are the tall brick
walls surrounding the central shrine and the goatherd's temple. The inner
face of the brick walls retains the niches into which glazed plaques were
placed (Fig. 4).

A comparison between the disposition of the extant monuments and Buddhist
textual sources reveals that the planners did not haphazardly orient the
monuments to the central temple but relied upon a tradition that specified
the layout. The inscription at Pegu connected with the sixth week, when the
Buddha was sheltered by the snake king, also described the Buddha's
preceding week at the goatherd's tree (fifth week) and then his walk to the
"southeast" of the Mahabodhi shrine to a special tree beside the lake.[11]
This inscription is located near the bank of a large artificial pond whose
actual orientation conforms to its location specified in the epigraph (Fig.
3). That the placement of this lake is mentioned in the record indicates
the significance attached to planning the shrines according to a formal,
predetermined layout, which was understood to emulate the original site at
Bodh Gaya, India.

The few previous interpretations of the Pegu monuments have claimed that
the layout was obtained from a special mission that Dhammaceti sent to Bodh
Gaya. But this belief is based upon two sixteenth-century manuscripts in
Burma that provide only general descriptions of such a mission. No
reference is made to the stations or a special layout at Bodh Gaya. Each
manuscript also differs in its account of the mission, and the dates of the
mission do not correspond.[12] Nevertheless, this connection between
Dhammaceti's kingdom and Bodh Gaya was considered the most plausible
motivation for the Pegu complex and its special layout. Such
interpretations also rested on the improbable assumption that all of the
stations at Bodh Gaya were extant at the time of the mission, and that
their positions were identical to those at Pegu.

None of the dozens of inscriptions from Pegu or Lower Burma during the
second half of the fifteenth century refers to a mission to India. Such a
mission would have been a source of great merit and pride, and there were
ample epigraphic opportunities for the Mons to express a direct link with
the Buddhist homeland. In addition, the Bodh Gaya region was firmly under
Muslim control beginning in the fourteenth century, and Buddhism within
India during this period was a faith practiced only by a small minority.
Moreover, it has long been recognized that the Buddhist kingdoms in Burma
and Thailand had turned to Sri Lanka for religious guidance where a "purer"
form of Buddhist practice and belief was thought to exist.[13] Dhammaceti
may have indeed sent a mission to Bodh Gaya, but the motivation and plan
for the monuments in Pegu emerged from more complex sources.

Dhammaceti's patronage at Pegu was connected to his active role in
rejuvenating a Buddhist community that was characterized by laxity,
corruption, and religious schisms, as described in detail in a lengthy
inscription at Pegu.[14] The solution, the king reasoned, was to unite the
clergy under an umbrella of orthodoxy imported from Sri Lanka. Three years
before the dedication of the stations in Pegu, therefore, forty-four Mon
clerics sailed to Sri Lanka in order to obtain fresh ordinations at the
chief monastery in Colombo on the bank of the Kalyani River. The same
epigraph in Pegu that documented the purpose of this mission recorded the
establishment of a special ordination hall in Pegu named after the Kalyani
River and other halls throughout Lower Burma in which new ordinations were
performed. A parallel dependence on Sri Lanka occurred in Thailand during
the same century. In both countries, for example, replicas of the Bodhi
Tree were established that were associated directly with Sri Lanka.[15]

Dhammaceti's moral revival of the Buddhist community also included the
celebration of relics that were uniquely tied to the establishment of
Buddhism in Lower Burma. The foremost were the strands of hair presented to
the merchants shortly after the Enlightenment, which were preserved in the
Shwedagon shrine in Rangoon. Others were six hairs given to hermits, and a
single tooth said to have multiplied itself thirty-three times.[16] The
theme behind the legendary history of each of these relics was the direct
connection between the historical Buddha and the Mon realm. Such relics
enhanced the sanctity of the monuments constructed in their honor, but they
also legitimized the very foundation ofBurma. Later Mon chronicles argued
for the primacy of the Shwedagon hair relics on the grounds that they were
the first relics of the Buddha placed under worship.[l7] The theme of the
stations and the hair relics therefore assumed a special meaning for Burma
during this era.

Textual Sources for the Seven Stations

Previous interpretations that connected the layout of the stations with
Dhammaceti's purported mission to Bodh Gaya overlooked the role of an
influential biography of the Buddha that specified a partial plan of the
stations at Bodh Gaya. The brief descriptions in this text, the Nidana
Katha, were probably based on a now lost cluster of shrines at Bodh Gaya
itself, whose foundation probably dated to the early centuries B.C. [18]
This work noted all of the stations, but provided the locations of only the
first four: the first week -- the Mahabodhi Temple, center of the complex;
the second week -- the "steadfast gazing" at the tree, northeast of the
Mahabodhi Temple; the third week -- the walk on the jeweled walkway,
between the "steadfast gazing" and the Mahabodhi Temple; and the fourth
week -- the residence in the jeweled house northwest of the Mahabodhi
Temple (Fig. 5).

That the inscriptions at Pegu and later Mon and Burmese versions of the
Buddha's life essentially adhere to the Nidana Katha is an important reason
for believing that this text provided at least a partial layout for the
Pegu monuments. A standard Burmese biography of the Buddha dated to the
eighteenth century follows the Nidana Katha in the location of the first
four stations but exceeds the earlier text by furnishing the orientations
of the last three stations.[19] They were fixed in the following order:
first week -- defeat of Mara and Enlightenment, the Mahabodhi Temple in the
center; second week -- "steadfast gazing," northeast of the Mahabodhi
Temple; third week -- the jeweled walkway, north of the Mahabodhi Temple;
fourth week -- the jeweled house, northwest of the Mahabodhi Temple; fifth
week -- the goatherd's tree and temptresses, east of the Mahabodhi Temple;
sixth week -- the snake king and lake, southeast of the Mahabodhi Temple;
and seventh week -- the Rajayatana tree, the two merchants and hair relics,
south of the Mahabodhi Temple (Fig. 6).

The orientation of the surviving monuments in Pegu conforms completely to
the plan specified in this eighteenthcentury text. An identical layout has
been noted for a missing group of seven shrines in Chiengmai, Thailand,
that was built during the same century as the Pegu monuments. [20] This
evidence suggests that a standard layout had emerged by the fifteenth
century, at least in Burma and neighboring Thailand. This plan has endured
into modern times, since two recently constructed shrines at Pegu, the
jeweled walkway and jeweled house, were built in locations conforming to
this layout.

The genesis of the standard plan owed much to the Nidana Katha, since this
text furnished at least a partial layout (the first four stations). At Bodh
Gaya itself, the stations probably shifted in location over the centuries,
and these changes, reflected in pilgrims' descriptions compiled at
different times, explain the orientation of the last three stations of the
plan found in Pegu and Chiengmai, and the occasional references to the
orientations of the stations in Buddhist texts.

The Indian Origin of the Seven Stations

No descriptions of Bodh Gaya during the fourteenth or fifteenth century
survive, but two much earlier sources furnish information for the
reconstruction of the monuments at the site. The earliest is a
fifth-century Chinese pilgrim's record of a journey to India that included
a list of all of the stations at the Mah-abodhi Temple.[2l] The orientation
of the shrines is not mentioned, but this reference confirms that all seven
stations cited in the Nidana Katha were actually constructed at the site. A
fuller account of Bodh Gaya is found in a seventh-century Chinese pilgrim's
record, the only source containing specific orientations for each of the
stations in relation to the central Mahabodhi Temple (Fig. 7). The stations
were counted among a number of other monuments and were not described as a
distinct group of temples.[22] Some were marked by special images
worshipped within monasteries, while others were noted by distinct shrines.
Distances between the stations were unstated, and therefore the scale of
any reconstruction must be approximate. That this Chinese description
deviated to a certain extent from the earlier Nidana Katha implies that the
locations of some of the stations had already changed somewhat by the
seventh century (Figs. 5, 7).

A comparison between the seventh-century description of Bodh Gaya, the
later standard plan in Southeast Asia, and the few Buddhist textual
references to the stations reveals the shifts in location that individual
shrines underwent during the Pala period (ca. A.D. 750-1300). Apart from
the Nidana Katha, the only early Pali work to include a description of the
stations is a commentary on the Udana, which has been assigned to the sixth
century. The locations of the stations in this commentary agree with the
Nidana Katha; the single exception is the jeweled house (fourth week),
which is located to the west of the central shrine.[23] That the
seventh-century Chinese pilgrim also placed the fourth station in the same
position should not be considered coincidental (Fig. 7). Such a
correspondence suggests that this Pali commentary drew upon a description
of the site at some stage of its evolution.

Two eighteenth-century texts from Burma and Sri Lanka also provided
directions for the stations. The Burmese source largely follows the Nidana
Katha (Figs. 5, 6) and is in complete agreement with the description of the
layout at Chiengmai referred to above. The locations of the stations in the
Sinhalese text correspond to the Burmese account.[24] An important
exception is the location of the goatherd's tree (fifth week), which in the
Sinhalese source is located in the southwest; in all of the other texts and
at Pegu, this station is positioned in the east. This location in the
southwest, however, conforms to the Chinese pilgrim's account in the
seventh century, suggesting that this late Sinhalese text preserved a
tradition that was at least partially based on a much earlier description
of the original site (Fig. 7). Such examples indicate not only the shifts
in the positions of the stations that took place following the seventh
century, but the way in which these alterations at Bodh Gaya were noted by
Buddhist pilgrims from abroad and conserved in traditions that differed
slightly from one another.

Although the Nidana Katha furnished the locations of only the first four
stations, it provided a convincing textual basis for these later texts and
the monuments at Pegu and Chiengmai. Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Southeast
Asia were probably more comfortable relying upon a textual source for the
plan, perhaps realizing that shifts in location had occurred at Bodh Gaya.
Inasmuch as the Nidana Katha specified the orientation of only the first
four stations, firsthand information on the positions of the last three
stations probably informed other later traditions. The correspondence
between the late Sinhalese version and the Chinese account of the site is a
strong argument for this conjecture. Pilgrims' descriptions of Bodh Gaya
were therefore incorporated into written traditions that remained
unaltered, despite the changing layout at Bodh Gaya.

The complex at Pegu and Chiengmai are the only surviving "replicas" of Bodh
Gaya that certainly included the stations, but it would not be surprising
if future fieldwork uncovered additional examples in Southeast Asia, Sri
Lanka, and even within India. The later textual sources may have been based
on such lost monuments that were thought to be correct renditions of the
sacred site. The eighteenth-century Burmese and Sinhalese versions were
indeed likely descriptions of local monuments, since specific distances
between the stations and the central temple were provided. The distances in
both examples are different, which suggests that while the correct
disposition of the stations was important, the scale was determined with
great flexibility. The first four stations in these two sources, however,
were planned in proximity to one another, but the last three were at some
distance from the central cluster.[25] At Pegu, for example, the missing
shrines marking the "steadfast gazing," the jeweled walkway, and the
jeweled house were probably constructed within the large area defined by
the compound walls for the central temple (Fig. 3).

Miniature replicas of the entire original site in India may have also
furnished models for Buddhists unable to visit Bodh Gaya itself. Two such
undated examples survive in Tibet, in wood and stone, but the numerous,
separately fashioned pieces have probably been shifted from their original
positions over the centuries.[26] Moreover, the small temples and stupas
that make up these replicas cannot be identified as stations.

Temples evoking the central shrine at Bodh Gaya have been constructed from
time to time throughout the Buddhist world. Important examples occur in
Beijing in China, Patan in Nepal, Chieng Rai in Thailand, and at Pagan, but
there is no evidence that they were accompanied by shrines to commemorate
the stations.[27]

Buddhists today at Bodh Gaya identify all of the stations at the site,
except the Rajayatana tree and the goatherd's shrine. The only
correspondence with the layout recorded in the texts and the Chinese
account is the orientation of the "steadfast gazing" (northeast) and the
jeweled walkway (north). That these same positions are found in the
influential Nidana Katha is perhaps one more indication of the importance
of this text.[28]

The inscriptions at Pegu are silent concerning any specific sources of the
plan, but the correct orientation of the stations played an important role
for the Mons in enhancing the resemblance of the site to the original in
India. The epigraph noted above that refers to the "southeasterly"
direction of the lake at Pegu is ample evidence that the nature of the
layout itself was significant. Dhammaceti's mission to Sri Lanka may have
observed a temple complex there devoted to the stations, but no firm
evidence suggests that any such monuments were constructed in the Buddhist
world before those at Pegu and Chiengmai. Thus the plan adopted at Pegu was
probably based on a combination of sources drawn from the Nidana Katha and
records compiled during the Pala period by Buddhist pilgrims from abroad.
Lost texts from Sri Lanka may have informed the layout in fifteenth-century
Burma and Thailand, since Sinhalese Buddhism exerted a tremendous influence
on these two countries during the fifteenth century.

Illustrations featuring the stations are contained in biographies of the
Buddha from Burma that are dated no earlier than the eighteenth century.
The ordering of the seven weeks is consistent with the Nidana Katha and is
designed to be read from left to right in a narrative fashion typical of a
certain type of Burmese manuscript. A seated Buddha receiving the two
kneeling merchants on the forty-ninth day after the Enlightenment depicts
the seventh station (Fig. 9).[29] Since the stations are not part of the
normal repertoire of Buddhist themes, the symbolic hand gestures assumed by
the Buddha find no parallel with standard depictions. The manuscript in
Thailand describing the stations also provided brief descriptions of the
postures and hand gestures assumed by the Buddha during each week, but only
a few correspond to the Burmese illustrations. The seven weeks featured on a later book cover from Sri Lanka adhere to the order of the Nidana Katha, but few of the postures or hand gestures match the examples from Thailand and Burma (Figs. 8, 9).[30] Such deviations suggest that whereas the ordering of the events and the layout of the shrines became conventionalized, little agreement existed for the depiction of the Buddha at each of the stations.

Demons and Temptresses

The most important remains from this entire period at Pegu are a great
number of glazed terra-cotta plaques that once belonged to the compound
walls of the central temple and the goatherd's shrine. The figures on the
tiles depict the army of the demon Mara and his three seductive daughters,
who are allegories of Lust, Passion, and Thirst. Representing attachment to worldly desires, M-ara and the three sisters symbolize for Buddhists an ever-present challenge in overcoming sensual and emotional bonds. In the later Burmese tradition borrowed from the Nidana Katha, the demons and daughters appear during the first and fifth weeks respectively.[31] The demon plaques were therefore inserted into two rows of parallel niches in all four walls surrounding the Mahabodhi Temple, while the females were
placed within niches in the walls of the goatherd's temple, associated with the fifth week (Figs. 3, 4).

The sparse documentation at the time of their discovery in the late
nineteenth century suggests that the total number of surviving plaques was between two and three hundred. At least two hundred tiles were transferred to the old Phayre Museum in Rangoon in the early part of this century, but some of these were perhaps destroyed during the Japanese occupation. Approximately fifty plaques are under the care of the Department of Archaeology in Burma, while an approximately equal number were dispersed long ago into public collections in the West.[32]

Two distinct groups of demon plaques prove that a limited narrative
sequence was planned. In one group, the demons are marching in pairs and
preparing for battle (Fig. 10). All of the figures are animal-headed with
human bodies. A number of plaques bear short, incised Mon legends across
their tops, which identify the types of animals and often their weapons.
The faces of the creatures are normally turned to the right. In rare
examples, the demons are joined in action (Fig. 11). No single figure seems
to represent the leader of the demons, Mara, who was said to ride upon a special elephant. The Pegu plaques resemble in a general fashion the
well-known Mara series contained on tiles belonging to the plinth of the
Ananda Temple at Pagan. All of the Pagan plaques bear early Mon
inscriptions describing the different demons. Many are paired, but there
are a number with a single figure. Unlike the Pegu examples, some of the
demons are mounted upon animals of various types.[33]

The second group at Pegu, also shown in pairs, features the army in defeat
and disarray after the collapse of their forces (Fig. 12). Shorn of armor
and weapons, many are depicted with their hands clasped together in a
traditional gesture of homage to the Buddha. Often one demon is placed
above the other in a vertical composition, simulating the rough-and-tumble of battle described in the Nidana Katha. Unlike the first group, the faces of the figures are not given a particular orientation. At Pagan, no tiles depict the defeated demons. These two categories of plaques were placed into the two parallel rows of niches. None of the plaques were described in situ, but perhaps one group was placed above the other. Or the vanquished demons alone may have been inserted into the east wall, since the decisive battle with M-ara occurred while the Buddha faced in that direction. If this were their original position, it would resemble the disposition at the Ananda Temple in Pagan, where the undefeated demons are found only on the western half of the basement, from the north door to the south; on the eastern half are tiles devoted to gods (devata) of various types.

The battle with M-ara was also a popular subject for illustrated
manuscripts in Southeast Asia. In an eighteenth century example from
Thailand, the demons are shown on the right, Mara upon his elephant at the top, and the defeated army on the opposite side (Fig. 14). Some of the figures have their hands clasped together in a fashion reminiscent of some of the defeated demons among the Pegu tiles.[34] The army is subdued by a flood produced by the Earth Goddess from water flowing from her hair, a variation on the defeat developed in Southeast Asia but unknown in the Pegu inscriptions.

The three daughters of M-ara reasoned that since men's tastes varied, each
would assume the appearance of a hundred women in different guises -- as
young girls, childless women, women who had one or two children,
middle-aged, and older women. The epigraph connected to Ajapala's shrine
repeats the list found in the Nidana Katha, but each manifestation is
increased to three hundred. Inscriptions on a number of the plaques attest
to these differences as specified in the Nidana Katha-.[35]

Like the demons, the females are paired and their bodies are normally
turned to the right (Fig. 13). Perhaps tiles with identifying labels began
the series of the same type that were without legends. Distinctions among
these plaques have not yet been linked to the differences noted in the
descriptive epigraphs. The most inventive are those in which the two women
are bound together by subtle glances or by overlapping arms.

Both the demon and daughter tiles are glazed in a limited spectrum of
colors -- normally tan, green, blue, brown, and red. A few are colored in a single hue, and an even smaller number are without glaze. The plaques were produced in two basic stages. The initial step was the formation of a thick slab of clay, perhaps in a wooden mold. Before the clay hardened, the loosely formed figures were pressed into the flat background. Small,
separately fashioned segments of clay were added to create the jewelry and weapons. Before the application of colored glazes, thin lines were incised to produce bold surface ornamentation. Small molds creating shallow raised designs were used on some of the women's garments; such molds never seem to have been used on the demon plaques. Certain incised lines on the demons suggesting musculature imply that the sculptors perhaps based their works upon two-dimensional designs for which linear elements alone defined volume and depth. While the demons exhibit great inventiveness and technical achievement, the daughters are uneven in quality. In some fairly crude examples, which could be mistaken for fakes, the careful detailing of the garments has been replaced by simple, unadorned shapes fashioned by hand. Additional figural sculpture from this period in Lower Burma is difficult to identify, and, therefore, few comparisons can be drawn with the plaques. Inscriptions at Pegu, however, suggest that the bulk of the figurative work consisted of now lost stucco ornamentation placed on the exterior of brick structures.

The Adoption of the Seven Stations

The most compelling question posed by the monuments in Pegu is not so much
the origin of its layout as the motivation behind the selection of the
theme. That the Mons may have established the only such large complex
devoted to the theme in the Buddhist world makes this question central to any understanding of the site. Former interpretations that linked the
site's creation to Dhammaceti's alleged mission to Bodh Gaya overlooked the important association between the stations and the Mon legend connecting the hair relics of the Buddha to Lower Burma. In the standard Buddhist sources, such as the Nidana Katha, the merchants received the relics on the last day of the seven weeks and returned to their home within India where the relics were deposited in a special shrine. In the Burmese versions, however, the two return to their native Burma to establish the relics in the country's chief religious monument, the Shwedagon shrine in Rangoon near Pegu. The tremendous importance of these relics by themselves highlighted the significance of the stations, for the seven weeks provided the narrative context in which the presentation of the relics to the Burmese merchants played a role. This symbolic connection between the shrine in Rangoon and the stations must have been firmly linked in the minds of the inhabitants of Lower Burma during the fifteenth century.

The importance of the hair relics was elevated during Dhammaceti's reign by extensive refurbishings of the Shwedagon monument in Rangoon. A lengthy
donative record at the Shwedagon fully expressed the connection between the hair relics and the stations. The brief account of the two merchants in the Nidana Katha is expanded in the inscription into an elaborate narrative associating the incident with the very transmission of Buddhism into Lower Burma. The version in the epigraph emphasized the role of the indigenous merchants in the Buddhist story. Native Sri Lankan lore known in Burma through imported texts also became wedded to the central myth; the hairs were stolen from the merchants by a cunning snake and recovered by a monk who was dispatched by a legendary Sinhalese ruler.[36] This conflation of the different legends was probably designed to enrich the efficacy of the relics in light of the prestige accorded to Sri Lankan traditions in Burma during this period.

The two merchants were archetypes for religious action and devotion in
Burma. The elder brother devoted himself to the worship of the relics as a lay disciple, while the younger joined the Buddhist order. Models for
royalty were furnished by a history of kings whose legendary patronage
centered on the creation and restoration of shrines housing relics. In his inscriptions, Dhammaceti likened himself to specific ancient kings in India, Sri Lanka, and Burma who "purified" the Buddhist community and who patronized enshrined relics.

The overarching issue raised by the stations in Pegu was the importance of legitimizing the corporal relics of the Buddha that were associated with Lower Burma. The Mon myths were similar to those of other Southeast Asian kingdoms that symbolically connected their separate regions to the
historical Buddha, who never traveled outside India. Like Saint James's
celebrated cult at Compostela, such myths enhanced the sanctity of relics
and specific sacred locations. Other Mon myths recorded in Dhammaceti's
inscriptions feature the teeth of the Buddha, promised to Lower Burma by
the Buddha himself during his lifetime and delivered at the time of his
cremation by a disciple. The Burmese sources noted that the hair relics had special significance, however, since they were the "first" of the Buddha's relics and they also became the object of worship while the Buddha was still alive. The elevation of these special Burmese relics during
Dhammaceti's reign may have represented in some ways a regional response to the overwhelming influence from Sri Lanka expressed in the massive
re-ordination of Burmese monks according to Sinhalese rites. The pious
ruler had insisted on this bold intervention from Sri Lanka to unite the
community and eliminate schisms, but such reliance on foreign traditions
may have stimulated the desire to highlight regional identity and the
integrity and automony of the Buddhist community of Lower Burma.

Inasmuch as the tradition of the stations was rarely, if ever, commemorated by monuments in Burma or elsewhere, the choice of the theme in Pegu and its related shrine in Rangoon reflected a unique combination of local requirements at a particular moment in Burma's history. The interplay between regional myths, sacred texts, and royal patronage reveals the complex nature of the transformation of a Buddhist theme and its development beyond India.

[1] U Chit Thein, ed. and trans., Shei-huang mon kyauk-sa baung-gyok
(Collection of Ancient Mon Inscriptions), Rangoon, 1965.

[2] This version is contained in the Nidana Katha, a lengthy preface to the Jatakas. Of uncertain date, this work in Pali drew upon works that were formulated in the early centuries B.C. For the development of the Buddhist canon, see K.R. Norman, Pali Literaturee, Wiesbaden, 1983. For a translation of this text, see Rhys Davids.

[3] The earliest reference is found in the Mahavagga; see T.W. Rhys Davids
and H. Oldenberg, trans., Vinaya Texts Translated from the Pali, Oxford,
1881, 73-84. The four Stations are marked by the following: the tree of
Enlightenment, Ajapala's tree, Mucalinda's tree, and the Rajayatana tree.
The Nidana Katha retained this order but inserted three stations between
the En]ightenment and the Ajapala incident.

[4] The theme is unknown in the Buddhist art of India. Gandharan reliefs
often depict the Enlightenment (first week), and the presentation of four
bow]s by directional deities (seventh week). Perhaps the most complete
depiction of the stations occurs on the south gateway at Sanchi; see J.
Marshall, A Guide to Sanchi, Calcutta, 1955, 56-57. A tree that Marshall
identified on this gateway with the former Buddha Vipasyin may, in fact,
represent the incident of the Buddha in a "steadfast gaze" at the Bodhi
Tree. This episode occurs in a unique relief from Amaravati; see H. Sarkar.
"The Nagarjunakonda Phase of the Lower Krsna Valley Art: A Study Based on Epigraphical Data," in EM. Asher and G.S. Gai, eds., Indian Epigraphy: Its Bearing on the History of Art, New Delhi, 1985, pl. 38. A representation of the jeweled walkway is found at Bharhut, and a number of examples of
Mucalinda shielding the Buddha occur in Indian art.

[5] The most extensive representation of the biography in Burma is found
among the images within the Ananda Temple at Pagan treated in Luce, pls.
278ff. The only stations represented are the "temptation" of the Buddha
(pi. 297, b) and the Enlightenment (pl. 297, d). Ninth-century imagery at Borobudur, Indonesia, is based upon a Sanskrit text, the Lalitavistara: the seven weeks are treated differently in this text than in the Nidana Katha, but the reliefs concentrate upon the incident of the two merchants that concluded the seventh week. This text makes no mention of the orientation of the stations.

[6] The stations are represented from right to left in the following order:
Mucalinda, "steadfast gazing," Ajapala tree, Enlightenment, jeweled house, walkway, and Rajayatana tree. The correct sequence is maintained by the pairing of consecutive weeks on either side of the central figure. For the Nidana Katha's role during the Pagan period, see H.L. Shorto, "The Devata Plaques of the Ananda Basement," in Ba Shin, et al, eds., Essays Offered to G.H. Luce (Artibus Asiae, Suppl., IIXX), 1966,156-165. A painted label associated with a depiction of the steadfast gazing (second week) at Pagan specifically refers to this incident taking place northeast of the Bodhi Tree. This evidence helps to confirm the role of the Nidana Katha or textual traditions based upon it. Curiously, none of the other inscriptions associated with these illustrations of the seven weeks refers to directions. The reference to the orientation of only one station may imply that there was some disagreement about the true locations of the other stations; see Col. Ba Shin, K.J. Whitbread, G.H. Luce, "Pagan, Wetkyti-in Kubyauk-Gyi, An Early Burmese Temple with Ink-glosses," Artibus Asiae, XXXIII, 3, 1971, 193.

[7] The stone images are examined in Luce, 152-153. R. Brown also treated
this iconography in P. Pal, ea., Light of Asia, Los Angeles, 1984,62. See
also H. Woodward, "Burmese Sculpture and Indian Painting," in Anand
Krishna, ea., Chavvi-II, Banaras, 1981, 21-24. Wall paintings depicting the stations are discussed in Col. Ba Shin, et al. (as in n. 6), 167-218. The stations appear in a Sri Lankan chronicle in which paintings(?) of the "events during the seven weeks" were commissioned by a king; see W. Geiger, trans., The Mahavamsa, London, 1964, 204. A later Burmese chronicle refers to an early c]eric who "had drawings made after the likeness of the great Wisdom Tree and the seven sites," which he took to Sri Lanka; see Pe Maung Tin and G.H. Luce, The Glass Palace Chronicle, London, 1923, 47.

[8] A list of Mon epigraphs is found in H.L. Shorto, A Dictionary of Mon
Inscriptions, London, 1971, XXX-XXXII. Most of the inscriptions have been
translated into Burmese in U Chit Thein (as in n. 1). Translations into
English of these records were prepared for me by Nai Pan Hla, who worked
from transliterations compiled by Luce and Blagden. For an overview of Mon monuments in Pegu, see D. Stadtner, "King Dhammaceti's Pegu," Orientations, XXI, 2, 53-60.

[9] The only firmly dated record at the site is the Mucalinda inscription
established on the fifth day of the waning half of the month of Asalha
(June-July) in 841 of the Burmese Era, or A.D. 1479. The Burmese Era began
in A.D. 638. The inscription was first edited in Report of the
Superintendent, Archaeological Survey of Burma, 1938-1939, Rangoon,
1939,22-24. The inscriptions associated with the Ajapala temple and the
jeweled walkway were translated in Bladgen, I, 1-19. The latter inscription bears no date, but the former was dedicated on the same day as the Mucalinda epigraph (the year is effaced). Thirteen immense stones bearing a weathered epigraph in Mon and Burmese are situated outside the compound walls of the Shwegugyi Temple on the east. This untranslated record is probably the major foundation grant of the site.

[10] The plan reproduced in this article is based upon the only drawing of the site; see Report of the Superintendent, Archaeological Survey of Burma, 1914, Rangoon, 1915, pl. II The scale of the Mucalinda Lake and its
distance from the two temples are approximate, since the lake was not
included in the plan published in 1914 and has never been properly
surveyed. That the chief temple is somewhat misaligned in relation to the
compound walls is probably another indication of its successive rebuilding.

[11] The Pali word for southeast ("agnay") was adopted; see Report,
1938-1939 (as in n. 9), 23.

[12] The fullest exploration of the Indian mission is in A. Griswold, "The
Holy Land Transported," in N.A. Jayawickrama, ea., Paranavitana
Felicitation Volume, Colombo, 1955, 173-225. Griswold did not visit Pegu,
and therefore relied upon the plan published in 1914, which did not include
the Mucalinda Lake. Moreover, he mistook many of the newer shrines noted on the plan for stations. G.H. Luce also proposed an Indian origin for the layout at Pegu in an address delivered to a Mon cultural conference held in Moulmein, February, 1955. For a typewritten copy of this unpublished lecture, I wish to thank Nai Pan Hla.

[13] W.M. Sirisena, Sri Lanka and South-East Asia, Leiden, 1978. The strong ties between Burma and Sri Lanka began in the Pagan period, if not earlier.

[14] The inscription, in Pali and Middle Mon, is engraved on ten stones
located approximately eleven kilometers north of the complex dedicated to the stations. The Pali section was translated in Taw Sein-Ko, "A
Preliminary Study of the Kalyani Inscriptions of Dhammacheti, 1476 A.D.,"
Indian Antiquary, XXII, 1893, 11-17, 29-53, 85-89, 150-159, 206-213,
236243. The longer Mon portion is translated in Blagden, III, 2, 75-290.
The Buddhist division in Sri Lanka was known as the Mahavihara (literally,
"Great Monastery"), whose headquarters were located on the bank of the
Kalyani River.

[15] Blagden, 278-280. In this inscription from Pegu, the actual origin of the tree is unstated, but it was called the "Kalyani Bodhi." In Chiengmai, the principal Bodhi tree was thought to originate from a seed that derived from Sri Lanka, which was traced back in turn to the original tree in India: see N.A. Jayawickrama, trans., Epochs of the Conqueror, Being a Translation of the Jinakamalipakarnam, London, 1968, 66ff and 139.

[16] The most important legends are discussed in H.L. Shorto, "The
Gavampati Tradition in Burma," in R. C Majumdar Felicitation Volume, ed.
H.B. Sarkar, Calcutta, 1970, 15-30.

[17] R. Halliday, "Slapat Rajawan Datow Smin Ron," Journal of the Burma
Research Society, XIIIZ, 1923, pt. 1, 1-67.

[18] See n. 2. In the Pali text, each shrine is referred to as a dagaba.

[19] This text, Tathagatha-oudana, was translated in P. Bigandet, The Life
or Legend of Gaudama, London, 1914. The section pertaining to the stations
is contained in chapter v. Burmese nature spirits or nats play a
significant role in the text. The worship of the nats was probably
important in early Pegu, since a 16th-century Mon manuscript refers to
syncretic shrines at all of the major Buddhist monuments in Lower Burma,
including those at the Shwegugyi and Ajapala shrines; see H.L. Shorto, "The De-watau Sotopan: A Mon Prototype of the 37 Nats," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, xxx, 1967, 128-129. That none of the Mon inscriptions refer to the nats suggests an attempt to adhere to Buddhist orthodoxy.

[20] E.W. Hutchinson, "The Seven Spires: A Sanctuary of the Sacred Fig Tree at Chiengmai," Journal of the Siam Society, xxxtx, 1951, 43. The
orientations of the shrines read by Hutchinson were corrected by Griswold,
214. The central temple, known as Wat Chet Yot, survives from the 15th
century, although none of the surrounding ruinous structures said to be
stations can be positively identified. The same complex is described in
less detail in a 16th-century Thai chronicle that recorded the construction in the mid-15th century of "seven hallowed spots"; tee N.A. Jayawickrama, trans. (as in n. 15), 139.

[21] J. Legge, trans., A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms, Oxford, 1886, 8889. The small shrines around the central temple in the famous Kumrahar plaque
may represent one or more of the stations.

[22] S Beal, trans., Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World,
London, 1869, 113-137. The plan reproduced in this article is in part based
upon A. Cunningham, Mahabodhi: or the Great Buddhist Temple under the Bodhi Tree at Buddha-Gaya, London, 1892, pl. XVIII.

[23] F.L. Woodward, ea., Udanatthakatha, London, 1977, 51-52. No directions are provided for the Mucalinda and Rayayatana trees.

[24] Bigandet (as in n. 19). For the Sri Lankan text, see O. Dhammajoti,
ea., Sarvagnagunalankaraya, Alutgama, 1936, 190-208. The relevant portions of this source were provided to me by Chandra Wickramagamage. A second Burmese text from the 18th century, Ma-la lin-ga-ra wnt-htu, located the steadfast gazing in the north and the jeweled house in the west; for a translation of this passage, I am grateful to Patricia Herbert. Both these positions conform to the Chinese pilgrim's account, and the location of the jeweled house is the same as that contained in the Pali commentary (as in n. 23). The orientation of these two stations differs from that found in the text translated by Bigandet, suggesting that versions of the stations varied slightly within the same region during the same general period.

[25] Such proximity is suggested in the texts that supply distances between the stations and the central temple. See also the wording in the Ajapala temple inscription in Blagden (as in n. 8), and in Bigandet (as in n. 18). Luce (as in n. 11) recorded an inscription found "two furlongs" south of trees. the Shwegugyi temple, which marked a shrine symbolizing the Rajayatana tree. This inscription was never edited, and its whereabouts are unknown. The proximity of the first four stations is a tradition that probably began in the Nidana Katha (as in n. 2), 201.

[26] C.E.A.W. Oldham, "Some Remarks on the Models of the Bodh Gaya Temple
Found at Nar-thang," Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society,
XXIII, 4, 1937, 418-428. I]lustrations of both models are found, however,
in Rabula Sankrityayana, "Second Search of Palm-leaf Manuscripts in Tibet," Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, XXIII, 1, 1937, 1-57, facing p. 17. More than a dozen small shrines in the shapes of stupas
surround the central temple in these two nearly identical models, but the
individual pieces must have been shifted over the centuries. See also B.
Rowland, "A Miniature Replica of the Mahabodhi Temple," Journal of the
Indian Society of Oriental Art," 1938, 75-77, and P. Myer, "The Great
Temple at Bodh-Gaya," Art Bulletin, XL, 1958, 277-298.

[27] These other Asian examples are discussed in Griswold, 209-213.

[28] J.C. Huntington, "Sowing the Seeds of the Lotus: A Journey to the
Great Pilgrimage Sites of Buddhism, Part I," Orientations, XVI, 2, 1985,
61.

[29] The British Library, OR. 14297. Captions beneath the illustrations
refer to the location of only one station, the Rajayatana, positioned in
the south.

[30] This Sinhalese work is illustrated in Pal (as in n. 7), 266-269. The
episode of the Buddha's pacing on a jeweled walkway shows him twice (upper
right-hand side). The episodes of the jeweled walkwaj end the steadfast
gazing are sometimes represented in late Thai mural painting, notably at
Wat Ko Kaeo Suttharam in Phetburi. At least one surviving Sri Lankan wall
painting from the same century at Ridi Viharaya, Matale District, contains
a depiction of the steadfast gazing.

[31]In one Sanskrit version, the Mahavastu, the daughters appear in the
third week while the Buddha is upon the jeweled walkway; see J.J. Jones,
trans., The Mahavastu, III, London, 1956, 269-274. In another Sanskrit
text, the Buddhacarita, the daughters appear with Mara at the Bodhi Tree;
see E.B. Cowell, et al., trans., Buddhist Mahayana Texts, Oxford, 1894,
160-163.

[32] The earliest notice of the plaques is in Taw Sein-Ko, "Notes on an
Archaeological Tour through Ramannadesa," Indian Antiquary, XXI, 1892,
377-86. The next reference is in R.C. Temple, "Notes on Antiquities in
Ramannadesa," Indian Antiquary, XXII, 1893, 327-366. Temple, unlike Taw
Sein-Ko, did not visit Pegu, but he illustrated a number of plaques that
were preserved in the Phayre Museum in Rangoon. By 1893, at least 170
plaques had been deposited in the Phayre Museum. Temple also referred to
tiles in the museum belonging to a shrine in Syriam, near Rangoon, but
laments that "these invaluable remains have been deposited without a note
to shew which are from Pegu and which from Syriam." Before the Second World
War, the Phayre collection was shifted to the central library of Rangoon
University, which was destroyed during the Japanese occupation. The status of the plaques during this period is unknown. Roughly thirty plaques are in storage at the Archaeological Survey office in Pagan, while about ten tiles are with the Archaeological Survey office in Mandalay. A handful are also in the main office of the Archaeological Survey in Rangoon, and a few fragmentary tiles are preserved in the museum in Mrohaung. Public collections in the West hold at least forty-seven, few of which have been published--London: Victoria and Albert Museum (4), British Museum (2), and Horniman Museum (7); Oxford: the Ashmolean Museum (6) and Pitt Rivers Museum (4); Exeter: Royal Albert Memorial Museum (8); Paris: Musee Guimet (4); and, West Berlin: Museum fur Indische Kunst (8). American museums recently acquiring plaques are the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco (a single tile with daughters), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (two demon plaques), and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (a single demon plaque). The pieces in Los Angeles have been illustrated in P. Pal, Images of Piety, Images of Wonder, Los Angeles, 1987, color pl. on p. 32, and fig. 17 (a-b). The most extensive collection in private hands (about fifty plaques) belongs to Yamamura Michio, a Japanese dealer. These plaques were acquired recently in Thailand, near the Burmese border along a smugglers' rouse. Some of these plaques have been illustrated in Secrets of the Ceramic Road: Recent hnds from the Thai-Burma Border (in Japanese), no author, n.d. The plaques vary somewhat in size, but they normally, measure 45cm in height and 35cm in width. The most recent pub]ication to discuss the plaques is J. Guy, Ceramic Traditions of South-East Asia, Oxford, 1989, 10-11. Guy suggests that an ear]y kiln site between Pegu and Rangoon may have been the source for the tiles in Pegu.

[33] Luce (as in n. 5), III, 151-152, and III, pls. 329-331.

[34] Pal (as in n. 7), 70-71. Although in other Thai depictions of the
scene the Buddha is usually shown seated on the throne, here he is not
represented. Some of Mara's men are dressed as Europeans and Muslims.

[35] The inscription on the plaque in the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco,
has been translated by Nai Pan Hla: "Mare's daughter assumes the form of a virgin having no children." According to Nai Pan Hla, a number of plaques
bear the single consonant "da" which refers to "tday" or "middle." This
refers to the "middle-aged" women in the Nidana Katha, but may have the
special meaning of "concubine" or "mistress" in Middle Mon. See a]so C.O.
Blagden, 'Some Talaing Inscriptions on Glazed Tiles," Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, 1912, 689-698. One complete plaque, in storage at Pagan,
has a single female figure.

[36] Blagden, 38-39. A medieval Pali text from Sri Lanka, the
Nalatadatuvamsa, was probably the origin of this myth. Other elements of
the Shwedagon inscription, principally place-names associated with the two brothers, Pokkharavati and Asitanjana, suggest the influence of two earlier Pali works, the Theragatha Commentary and the Anguttara Commentary. In the Nidana Katha and the Mahavagga, the merchants are said to be from Ukkala, a
region normally identified with the state of Orissa in eastern lndia. The
tradition of eight strands of hair recorded in the Shwedagon inscription
appears to derive from the Anguttara Commentary. Much of the same
information is also found in Halliday (as in n. 16). The debt Burma owed to Sri Lanka for its Buddhist literature is witnessed in a list of 295 texts contained in an inscription at Pagan with the date A.D. 1442. The Mons did not occupy Pagan, but there is no reason to think that the same texts were not available in Lower Burma; see M.H. Bode, The Pali Literature of Burma, London, 1909, 101-109.

MAP: Map of principal sites in India and Southeast Asia

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): 2 Terra-cotta plaque, Burma, ca. 11th-12th
centuries. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts

DIAGRAM: 3 Plan of the Seven Stations, Pegu

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): 4 Compound wall, Shwegugyi Temple, Pegu (courtesy
Department of Archeology, neg. no. 1913-14/1236)

DIAGRAM: 5 Layout according to the Nidana Katha

DIAGRAM: 6 Layout according to Burmese manuscript

DIAGRAM: 7 Plan of Bodh Gaya according to Chinese pilgrim

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): 8 Manuscript cover, Sri Lanka. Los Angeles County
Museum of Art. Herbert R. Cole Collection (photo: Museum)

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): 9 Burmese manuscript. Seventh Station, London,
British Library (photo: Library)

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): 10 Mara's demons. Los Angeles, Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, Walter Grounds Collection (photo: Museum)

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): 11 Mara's demons. Oxford. Ashmolean Museum (photo:
Museum)

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): 12 Mara's demons. Los Angeles, Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, Walter Grounds Collection

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): 13 Mara's daughters. San Francisco, Asian Art Museum (photo: Museum)

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): 14 Defeat of Mara's army. Berlin, Staatliche Museen
Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Museum fur Indische Kunst (photo: Museum)

Frequently Cited Sources

Blagden, C.O., Epigraphia Birmanica, IV, 1, Rangoon, 1934. Griswold, A.,
"The Holy Land Transported," in N.A. Jayawickrama, ea., Paranavitana
Felicitation Volume, Colombo, 1955, 173-223. Luce, G.H., Old Burma--Early
Pagan, 3 vole., Locust Valley, N.Y., 1969. Rhys Davids, C.A F., Buddhist
Birth-Stories, London, 1925.

My research in Burma during the fall of 1987 was funded by a grant from the Smithsonian Institution. Additional support was provided by the University Research Institute, The University of Texas at Austin. I would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the Department of Religious Affairs, the
Department of Archaeology, and the United States Information Service in
Burma. Colleagues who have shared their insights include Nai Pan Hla, U
Myint Aung, Robert Brown, Patricia Herbert, Janice Leoshkho, Senake
Bandaranayake, and Chandra Wickramagamage.